SBenegaL

Author: Sachi

  • An exciting journey of starting a society – extremely satisfying

    My life has been a summation of various experiments that I have been venturing on – many of the decision I have taken and followed have really no rationale description that even I could give – forget a prescription. Experimenting with uncertainty is now a part of me… and when some of these experiments make way to something that is extremely tangible there is no bound for the satisfaction and happiness I experience.
    A recent such venture that sprouted into an organization has been setting up our own – Amba Bhavani Vividoddesha Souharda Sahakari. A cooperative which today almost every one from my community says there has been a felt need – their argument goes saying – “every other community in the region has one and we are late – none the less – better late than never”. 
    I possibly wouldn’t have ventured onto this one if it was not for a dear friend of mine – Murali who was helping me explore the possibility of owning a house in my home town – Udupi. It was he who really was the guy who sowed the seed into my head… 
    Frankly, I didn’t know much about Cooperative Society to begin with – it was entirely a new field. I just waited on for Murali to repeat his idea so that I am really sure he was interested in it – and yes he was… I kept hearing the enthusiastic idea again and again. 
    Being in Bangalore, I knew it would be relatively difficult for me to really venture out to Udupi and attempt setting up the society – I instead thought it would be best if I could focus on getting people involved into this venture. I realized that banking would be a crucial part of this venture and so, the first person whom I got on board was Manjunath Uncle…
    I discussed the idea with him and then connected Murali and uncle to chalk out the list of people we could get on board… the first of this was my father and then we went on to add in a lot more experienced people onto the list of directors and slowly we could see the action begining.
    There was still some doubt and skepticism, but these were put to rest as the team began to speak with each other. There was then the phase were people would keep meeting to chalk out the plan of action, but it wouldnt take a kick start and begin moving… I had my doubts of this begining to take off really, but thanks to the energy of uncle the engine slowly began moving….
    We got a provisional approval for the process of making shareholder… this was possibly the toughest task of the whole process thus far. We were given 15 days and were asked to make 500 members and raise a certain capital to show that the people on whose behalf we were really attempting this were also seeing the need for it. 
    Several several full-days and evening hours of pursuing finally bore results – reached the target well within the time and submitted our application… but then… the assembly elections were announced. 
    We were this close to finishing the process of registration and now we had to wait for two reasons – there was a change in the act that would define how we were to proceed next, and the second when the new act would really come into effect…. even bigger wait was… when would the time come for us to start after the elections…
    All we could do was just wait… after nearly 4 months of waiting finally we got the go ahead from the department and it was time we came out….
    The society was inaugurated after a long delay but yes.. it gives me great pleasure to see it live on the ground. I know our task is just beginning – there is a tougher challenge ahead – that of really executing the plan ahead…. lets hope by God’s grace we build on this start…
    Wishing all the best to the team and seeking the continued support of all involved…

  • Balance Product Development with Communication

    Many startups work too much on a product but spend little time communicating about their product/services; there are other start-ups which do the other extreme – over communicate but spend little time on product development. As mentioned earlier, working out the communications to synchronize with what you intend to deliver through your product is quintessential.  It is crucial to find a balance in this activity of really doing the work – and talk about the work. 
    In addition to the hard work put on the product the entrepreneur could at a minimum need to have the following as part of his communication activities:
    1. Elevator Pitch – short pitch that covers what the business does and addresses. Ensure it is catching the attention of the listener! Yes, it takes time to perfect this and its only by practice that this gets better.
    2. Short Business Summary – I would prefer a super short summary in a hard copy format – say around A5 size or even the hind of your visiting card that helps communicate what you do really precisely sharply. There are like like hook to the communication exchange done – people could look at this and find use at a later date.
    3. Business Presentation – this is an ever-evolving document. The more time you spend understanding your audience and the more presentations you make – this one only gets better. Spend time working out your presentation – remember getting the right graphic/images could make is just so much more communicating.
    4. A catchy website URL- there is really nothing like a web URL! for the company that clearly defines what you intend to do. This is invariably a one time choice – so think through and work out your thoughts with the name. For those who still believe offline is the only business – spending time online and having a good website could make a enormous difference.
    5. Blog – Developing a habit of blogging pretty regularly is important when you intend to communicate with your audience regularly.
    Start-ups would benefit by devoting time towards a sustained communication effort. It would be ideal for the founding team to sit down on the communication dimension periodically and take stock of what they are trying to pitch right from day one (or even earlier depending on when they are booking their URL). 
    Even as little as 30 minutes a week to re-look at the way you communicate could emerge very fruitful.Keep the audience coming back for more interesting, relevant aspects. So take the time off and get your communication plan worked out.

  • Early Customer interactions are very valuable

    It is a hard time for entrepreneurs visiting a prospective client.Very often the entrepreneur comes back with the feeling – this guy just chewed away my time. He/She didn’t give any feedback on the product, nor did he give me the purchase order! 
    This is typical of the very first meeting, but over meetings the scenario changes. The entrepreneur could look at the multiple interaction with prospective clients in a different light. In these interactions, entrepreneurs are over loaded with tons of unstructured data. The entrepreneur needs to structure them to be able to figure out a common thread and focus on it – make the data into a valuable, actionable information. 
    Yes, while the entrepreneur is focused on selling  the product to the prospective client, the client is really looking at what more can be got out from this product when in use. The client is looking at how the product that you intend to provide could be put to use – their focus is typically at cost reduction, scaling quicker than the competition etc – in essence overcoming an obstacle. 
    Very often, we as entrepreneurs do not distance ourselves from the  product we are trying sell. The product that we go to the market could be just be a technology offering – if is important to make it a customer usable product with some “finishing touches”. The Entrepreneur could leverage this wealth of information to really thinking of creating the “product” from the “technology offering” that he/she would get to the market.
    As an example – you could have built a conference plat form, but the interaction with the customers keep giving you the repeated questions – Can I know where the customers come from? How much time they spend on it etc? Clearly, the customer is looking at some analytical interpretation of the technology – so adding a layer of analytics and presenting as a dash board could really make it easier to sell!

  • Look beyond technology when starting a Product Business

    If you have been following your friends who are starting off closely with a new technology business idea – you would have probably found the following scenario:
    Very often, one finds engineer entrepreneur who comes up with an interesting insight from technology and attempt venturing out on his/her entrepreneurial journey. Invariably, one finds that most of these  entrepreneurs focus on developing their products for a very long time, so much so that, they do not know who their market is! They wouldn’t have even spoken with a single customer! They face a constant internal resistance and find it hard to get off their office where they are comfortable with their technical expertise and step into selling the product they are building!
    In making these statements I do not intend to say that entrepreneurs who are technologist cannot build a business – it is an attempt to get them to move out of their offices into the shoes of a businessman.
    As some one who has started a business, begin with the following understanding:
    1. Technology is not Business – Technology is generally a component of business that helps in delivery. 
    2. Get out and Sell – It is important to sell the product that you are building, if you don’t sell the product there is no commercial use of product you might build.
    3. Engage with your customers early – Do not wait for the complete product that you think has a market. Go in with simple to use features and see how the market reacts and listen to what it wants.The following suggestions could help you to start on this:
    • List product features into a priority (your thought) and freeze in on the first 2-3 features in this list
    • Make a list of customer (prospective) that you think could benefit from these features
    • Quickly build this feature set (do-not change as of now)
    • Approach a Customer and ask him to try out as a commercially free product but give you feedback
    • Listen to the feedback – improve your product with the feedback

    Clearly, listening to the market early is important to ensure that your product is market accepted and it is important to do it early than late in the process of building your business. Get out of your comfort zone – businesses really need to be as close to their customer and not in the high rise offices…

  • Poor Little Rich Slum – Rashmi Bansal & Deepak Gandhi

    Traveling is a really interesting learning period. 
    Yes, it really is – that is why the old adage in Kannada Says – “Desha Nodu, Kosha Odu” (Roam around your country, Read books) yes that’s the best way to acquire knowledge. 
    Pretty much that’s is what happened this time when I was traveling to  Tirupati. I picked up one of the books from my shelf – still unread yet small in size. It was – Poor Little Rich Slum. 
    Yes… its another of the books by Rashmi Bansal. The book is about Asia’s Largest Slum – Dharavi, lying in the heartland of Mumbai. I had heard quite a bit of the entrepreneurial activity that happens in Dharavi and thought it would be a quick read. 
    Just 2 minutes into the read and I was completely engrossed into it. Loved the stories of the entreprenuers there and also the change makers. These were the two major sections of the book and just loved knowing about these entrepreneurs. 
    I suggest this be an essential read for those people who want to know about the entrepreneur scene in India. 
    Go ahead… Its worth a buy. Read it and enjoy the Journey through Dharavi.

  • Big Bets, Big Rewards – Sushil Mantri


     
    This book accidentally landed up in my kitty of reading. While working at NSRCEL, there are numerous books on entrepreneurs that you would get to lay your hands on and this was one such. I borrowed the book to read and its simple narrative style caught my attention.

    Illustrating not his complete life story, but some interesting events that happened and how he negotiated them – Sushil Matri scripts his journey up the ladder. There are interesting nuances he gets out about how he leveraged the various things at his disposal to really build the Mantri story. I loved these narrations.

    This book is an interesting read – and I suggest this book to any one who is looking to get into entrepreneurship. Having said this and known the little I know from the book, I think this book is also a precursor to something that might be coming up soon – a Mantri IPO? the guess stays…

  • The Lean Startup – Eric Ries

    It had been a long time since I read a book this quickly!
    Yes, there are some subjects that interest me and definitely entrepreneurship is amongst the top. I have been reading many books on start-up and entrepreneurship, and with the ability to relate to the problems/issues of the entrepreneurs whom I meet day in and day out as part of my role as incubation I connect pretty quickly with them. 
    I got hold of this book around a week and half back and I was able to manage my time to finish this book quickly! I didnt have to spend too much time doing context switches. The five principles that mentioned in the book struck a good chord with me. These principles are:
    1. Entrepreneurs are Everywhere
    2. Entrepreneurship is Management
    3. Validated Learning
    4. Innovation Accounting 
    5. Build-Measure-Learn Loop 
    all touch a simple chord with entrepreneurs. The style of writing is pretty much simple which makes it rather simple for entrepreneur to actually use these techniques in their business.
    My vote goes with this book for any one who wants to know about starting off – especially in a B2C and IT heavy companies. For others there might be some tweaking of the insights developed to suit their domain.
    Check the website: http://theleanstartup.com/

  • Anadka Falls – 3 (KadamaGundi Falls)


    God has his own plans…. Man is just an instrument to his game… 

    What began with just an over enthusiastic attempt to go on a trek; turned out to be full of surprises. 
    I had not been on a trek for over an year now – I was craving for one since the last trek to kudremukh around Sept 2011, the one to Chuchi falls was less of a trek and more of a family trip. This time I was determined to climb up the “Ettinabhuja”, which we missed the last time after our team had climbed the Amedikal. 
    After a few calls and facebook chats, our team of 5 – Vasudendra, Arun, Shweta and Sahana was ready to get to Ettinabhuja. Though the team was formed more than a month ago, my repeated attempts to reach our guide turned futile – our first attempt to get the guide wasnt successful due to some personal problems, the second guide wasnt reachable given that the landline connections near Shishila are unreliable.  
    After a brief consultation with the team – a couple of days before the trek, it was decided that we would go ahead with the trek and take our chance once we reach Shishila. The tickets to Dharmastala were booked – the plan was to freshen up here, and then possibly take a jeep drive from here to Shishila directly. 
    It was around 5:45 AM when we reached Dharmastala, and we wasted no time in getting freshened up in the bus-stand. We then moved to the Hotel there to finish our breakfast and got our food packed for the trek. We next ventured on to find our vehicle to reach the base-camp of Shishila. 

    The first plan was to hire a jeep/auto from Dharmastala to Shishila – this would be a bit costly and would be around Rs 600 /- We then decided to go to Kokkada and take a jeep from there (this we thought at least, would be a bit more affordable) We hired a service jeep for around Rs 350/- to Shishila. 
    When we reached our guide’s home, we were in for a rude shock! The trekking from Shishila to Ettinabhuja was closed for over an year! There was a naxal problem and the forest guards were very reluctant to let anyone to climb from here. There was no way we would be allowed to reach the peak from here. 
    We got into a deliberation immediately to decide on the next trek point, none of us wanted to return without a trek. After some time we decided to quickly move on to reaching Dedupe and go to the Hanadka Falls. We did ask some of the localites at Shishila if they had information about the feasibility of getting to Dedupe and likelihood of being permitted to go to the falls. We were able to get an affirmative on the permission and decided to move on towards the Dedupe.

    Though I did think philosophically that – “Man Proposes, God Disposes”,
    there is really nothing that we realize what God has actually disposed
    until we try the next option. This means, one has to apply oneself to the situation and think about what to do next – what is the next best situation that I could go in for?

    I was going to Dedupe the third time and so to some extent I wasn’t very willing to go on this, but I knew it would be the first for the others excepting Arun. I decide it would be nice to see the falls again and if time permits be able to explore anything new.

    We returned in the same jeep (just that we had some more people along this time) to Kokkada, and were luck enough to quickly get the bus to Dharmastala. This was like reaching back to square one and a couple of hours spent without any real use. A short wait at Dharmastala and we got our bus to Ujire.

    At Ujire, we checked with the ticket counter to see if we would be able get any bus immediately, being a day earlier to the elections we werent very convinced of having a bus to our destination (it is relatively remote here). We stood waiting on the road towards Kotigehara – where we could climb the bus to Dedupe. Seeing a jeeps about there, we thought of trying the option of reaching Dedupe via the jeep. We found one in no time we found one that had initially planned to have its last stop as Kajoor; however having seen five of us in the team he decided to move ahead to Dedupe.We were lucky here and went along.

    I spoke with the driver on the way and he also mentioned about the Ermayee falls close by – I was immediately enthused by the possibility of exploring another falls and so let Arun know about it. We decided to first finish Dedupe and then if time permits (which I felt we would definitely be able to manage) we would return to visit Ermayee.

    A 45 minutes journey with the Jeep, we reached Dedupe from where we had to begin our trek to Anadka Falls. At Dedupe, there is also a Panchayat Office, besides which there is a board that points to the direction of “Kadamagundi Falls”. This is the other name for Anadka Falls. We checked with the Panchayat office about the permission to reach the falls. One of the person in the Panchayat office was kind enough to call the person (Mr Raju) in charge of collecting the names etc of the trekkers who go to visit the falls – he wasn’t in the Forest Guard office and so asked us to write down the names at a small shop on the route to the falls. 



    Thanking the individual for the help, we decided to move ahead and register our names at the shop. The shop owner is Mr Vasantha with whom we wrote down the names and deposited the entry fees before moving further. He also asked us to call the Forest officer(whose number he gave) to ensure that he know we have actually got the permission. He asked us to return before 6 PM in the evening. Thanking him, we continued our journey head.


    The hot sun and the humid climate was making it tough for us to get going smoothly. The dusty Jeep Track only made me feel worse. The perspiration levels were pretty high – I feel the sweat drip from my cheek and my T-shirt completely wet, and with the sun right above our heads our energy was draining pretty quickly. I remember having seen a bit more forest on my earlier treks to the falls – this time I could see few plantations coming up. The forest department too was looking to get its area fenced. 

    After trekking for a little more than an hour we reached the house of Mrs Savitri Marathe. On my earlier trek, Thyagraja Marathe had got me here – so with a brief introduction she allowed us to move through her plantations to the falls. Another 15 minutes trek, we spotted the falls – this enthused the team and we quickly reached the base of the falls. 

    Arun and Vasu were quick to get to having a bath at the falls. I in my usual style decided to rest on one of the rocks and take a short nap. Sahana and Shweta too were busy trying to enjoy the shallow pond that the falls had created. 


    In the earlier trek, my team and I had explored a couple of cascades of the falls above the visible one, this time I wasn’t very enthused about trying it again an so just waited for the others to return to the stone for lunch. In my minds window, I waded through the memories of earlier trek and was comparing it. I had visited the falls three times and at all different points of the day – the first one was very early, while the second one was late in the evening – this time it was mid noon. The falls looked so different each time – the kind of birds that sun varies so did the intensity of leaf colors! Nature – you are just a beautiful director, painter composer – simply an all-rounder. 


    After spending over an hour and half at the falls and having our lunch, decided to trek back. We filled in our water bottles and some how Sahana wasn’t convinced that the water was good enough so she put the water back. We decided to fill the water bottles at the Marathe Home. 

    The local community of around 10 houses uses the water from this falls for their drinking and irrigation purpose. They have pipe that detours some water a bit drown-stream from the falls to their home. This is the primary source of drinking and most of other water requirements of this community.


    As we resumed the journey back, Sahana who was leading the trek was very happy to move through the plantations and would have almost lead us to another home if not for some route correction. We returned to the Marathe home – spoke with Mrs Savithir, filled water in our bottles and after a break of 30 minutes decided to trek to Dedupe.


    By this time, I could sense that the team had lost most of the steam and asking for a trek to Ermayee might be futile. We just walked our way back towards Dedupe – the hot sun had just gotten hotter. We reached Mr Vasanth’s store after an hour of trek and when we did come there he was off for lunch. A bit further from there was some shade and a bridge where we all sat down drinking some water. We knew for sure that some soda would have helped and so patiently waited till he returned. 


    Around 10 minutes of waiting and we found him walk back into the store, we ran in to check if there was something that could quench our thirst – we gobbled up a few Mango juices and felt a bit relieved as his stock of Soda was all over. We thanked him and continued our journey to the main street where we could catch the bus from. 


    We could see a public bus that carried the election duty officials to the village school for the election duty the next day. The Chief Election Officer (CEO) was extremely active this year and we had not just read about crores of Rupees being caught at various check posts – a week earlier when we were driving back from our hometown of Udupi to Bangalore we had multiple points where checking was in progress. The CEO seems to have really done a good work this year.


    Once we reached the main street, we found another shop that was opened and we asked if we could get some soda/soft drink that could make us feel better. The hot sun had almost dehydrated us completely. We were lucky to find the soft drinks and were more than pleased to gulp them. We then asked about the next bus to Ujire. This was to be at around 4PM. We still had an hour of time to spend sitting – we looked around and found a bus-stand and also another shop which was closed. We decided to rest in the verandah of the shop while Vasu decided to sleep peacefully in the Bus-stop. Around 3:40 we found the bus coming into Dedupe and thats when we decided to get up and get ready for return.We had a few glasses of packed Brinda Juice which was just too good for us and also helped satisfy the thirst.


    We got into the bus to Ujire and before we could realize all of us were fast asleep. We woke up just in time for the Ujire Stop and got down. A short discussion about what next and we decided to go to Kottegehara for the famous “Neerdose”. We waited for around 15 minutes when we got a bus to Bellary – an hour and half of journey we reached Kottigehara. 


    Vasu and Arun were in a great hurry to rush to the hotel and before we knew what was happening – they were making their choice of hotel. We went into Hotel Anil and ordered Neerdose – I am not sure how many plates of these did we really eat, but it was worth a memory :).

    An enquirer on the bus timing got us to know that there was a bus at 10:30 PM from Moodigere, it was just around 6:30 PM now and we had to keep ourselves occupied till such time.


    Vasu being a well known author in Kannada had fans all over the state – we asked him what we could do next. He knew Mrs Rajeshwari Tejaswi – wife of Late Poorna Chandra Tejaswi (He is son of the renowned Kannada literate KuVemPu), and suggested we could have a visit to their home. We all were gun-go with the plan and immediately jumped it to move on.


    We caught the next bus to Moodigere and after a short walk in the completely dark roads of Moodigere with a single torch! we reached the home of Mr Tejaswi. The next hour and half that we spent at the home was amazing – Mrs Tejaswi detailed out her experiences, the time at Moodigere, we saw the various prizes conferred on Mr Tejaswi and to top it some of the amazing collection of flora that was there in their garden.


    We thanked Mrs Tejaswi for the hospitality and decided to walk back to the handpost. The bus-stand was around couple of Kilometers from the hand post and we hired an auto to the town. After a wait of around an hour discussing various issues from politics to literature to cricket to music and many more, we were extremely happy to see the bus arrive in time. 


    We quickly jumped into the bus, blocked our seat and silently waited for the return journey to begin to Bangalore. As I closed my eyes, the days happenings unfolded in my minds eye. The amazing change of plans, the almost serendipity of getting to visit a great author’s home, but with one sadness of not having been able to check on the new falls I got to know off. 


    It was an awesome trek, and I loved the company of my mates – Arun, Vasu, Sahana and Shweta for this trek – thank you all for making it so wonderful.

  • Entrepedia-Nandini Vaidyanathan

    I just completed reading this book too – Entrepedia just hours after having completed the earlier book – Sea of Poppies.

    A book I could easily ignore… really! I have been engaged with NSRCEL for quite some time now and have seen a lot more intense interactions.. guess this is one of the reasons why I feel so. I feel the content of the book is just superficial. The intensity of mentoring start-ups is much much intense and this just doesn’t give any significant value for the reader.

    Note all this is my personal opinion, guess there might be people with different opinion… but my reco is please ignore the book.

  • Sea of Poppies – Amitav Ghosh

    It has be a long time since I have blogged anything here. I just completed reading a book and thought this would be a good starting point for this year’s blog posting.
    I had begun reading Sea of Poppies quite some time ago… donot remember when exactly. However given the pressing demands I put on my time, reading this had taken a back seat. I finally completed it yesterday night!
    While I began reading the first two sections of the book which were named – Land and River, the pace was pretty slow. Starting with different themes, and moving pretty slow, but as Amitav Ghosh builds it up to the end in the “Sea” section, I found the book most engaging. It was also a reflection of the distances between the stories during the initial phase that probably didnt get me that pushy into completing the reading in one sitting, but as I began the Third section, I just couldnt wait to finish and see what next. 
    Another aspect of the book was the use of Hidustani to highlight the conversations between the people. I was really interesting to know the usage of this language and how it relates to various dialects that were found during the time…
    A wonderful read, and definitely this book has made me a fan of Amitav Ghosh and his righting. A very good read…. pick your copy and get to reading…